Oxymoron
by Kasuchi
Summary: Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contains multitudes. [Oneshot]


**Title:** Oxymoron  
**Rating:** T, for themes and implied naughtiness  
**Fandom / Pairing:** House, Wilson/Cameron  
**Summary:** Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contains multitudes).  
**Disclaimer:** House isn't mine, but if it was I'd totally make David Shore write like every episode.  
**Notes:** For Roxy, as a thank-you. (Just as an aside: this is my first time writing Wilson/Cameron, so here goes nothing.)

* * *

_He rests a hand on her thigh in the back of the cab._

She doesn't stop him, doesn't slap his hand away.

Instead, she places her hand over his and moves it higher.

The whole time, their eyes lock and hold.

&&&

  
When they tumble and stumble into bed, it is dark and the bed is low. She falls back and he presses on top of her. He isn't gentle; far from it, he is all bruising kisses and marks. She will ache in the morning, but for now there is this and there is the darkness.

She takes it all into herself. She didn't expect this; he was the lighter half of the contrast in terms, him and House. Wilson was supposed to be the gentle one, loving and tender.

His thumbs dig into her hips. They buck, but she knows that his fingers leave bruises regardless.

&&&

  
It started with lunches, of all things.

He had joined her once, early on. He set down his tray while she flipped through a magazine on her downtime.

"This seat taken?" He was all innocence and charm, and she smiled and set aside the periodical. Unconsciously, she ran a hand through her hair and ratcheted up the charm.

They played the same game, after all.

"Not at all."

He slid into the chair, all coiled grace and affability. "So, Dr. Cameron, why are you eating alone?"

She plays with the spoon in the empty cup of yogurt and stares off into space. "No reason."

He gives her a hard, calculating look. The lines of his face deepen for a moment as he studies her, and he looks older in that instant than she has seen him before. She blinks and it is gone, but the image she saw is filed away for later note.

"House got you down?" The tone is measured and almost too easy, too nonchalant. He spears a bit of the hospital lasagna and studies it instead of her. She shivers.

"Yeah...No...I don't know. Both."

"That's confusing."

"Try living it." She rises to return to thankless (thankful) work.

He catches her wrist, and his grip is harder than she expected. "I have." He lets go and she walks off, confused.

She avoids rubbing her wrist.

&&&

  
_His hand rides up her thigh, past her skirt. But his eyes are watching hers._

She sees shadows on his face from the passing street lamps. She keeps his hand moving until he is tracing concentric circles on her inner thigh through her hose.

Her eyes are shadowed, too, darker than normal. Grey instead of green, and intense. She's holding his gaze for what it's worth. She's letting him do this.

When he kisses her, his hand doesn't stop moving.

&&&

  
After she loses her first patient - the woman with the terminal cancer - he takes her out for a drink. Together, they get roaring drunk and swap stories. Cameron divulges anecdotes about the courtship with her husband, and Wilson shares embarrassing stories about House.

After the fifth drink, though, something in his demeanor shifts, and the stories die like so many patients until James - not _Wilson_ - is telling of the first patient he lost.

"He was young, younger than me at the time." Allison stirs her martini silently, watching him with half-lidded eyes and shadows. "He looked like my brother, too. We tried everything - chemo, prescriptions, even some of the cutting edge treatments. Nothing seemed to work until finally the head of the department came in. She was this graying woman who had seen cancer rear its ugly head and all the damage that came with it." He tosses back another drink, the bottle glinting in the low light. His tie is half-undone and his collar is loose; by now, he is most certainly James. And James is not a kind man.

"She grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me out of there. She pulled me across the hall to the old oncology office. I got chewed up and spit out. Two days later, he was gone." He swirls the contents of the bottle in his hand, the liquid sloshing inside. He's staring at the countertop, but he doesn't see the mahogany surface or the knots in the grain; she knows he sees the face of that young man frozen in grief as they told him that nothing could be done except prepare him for death.

Except that is what she sees, saving that she, like her husband, is on the receiving end of that message. And suddenly the room is suffocating, the smoke too thick and the martini too sweet. She sets the wide conic glass down and looks at him, eyes large and glassy but focused.

"Let's get out of here."

James grins at her, an inebriated grin that flashes all his teeth and takes ten years off his face. "Why not?" He slaps down some bills on the counter and so does she, and they are off into the night.

&&&

  
He sees the curiosity in her eyes, sometimes. She, the second fellow hired by House, hides her curiosity behind charts and by pretending to zone out.

He knows better.

She sees them as the others see them, as the others want to see them: a contrast in terms. Him, the affable, charming oncology head. House, the acerbic, hardened, bastardly man running diagnostics.

But it was so much more than that. House wears his pain like a Vicodin bottle in the pocket and a cane in the hand. He does not, but it still happens. There is anger and sadness in his life and not just at whatever divine being there may or may not be running things; he, like House, is just as disillusioned with the world as one who has seen death can be.

He has stared into the abyss and now wonders if he is better for it.

The look in her eyes, though, makes him wonder in turn. She is lemonade, all sunshine and cheer. But the intensity of her gaze - a piercing, soul-searching green tinged with gold - begs to differ. She is lemonade, sugar and sunshine.

He is waiting for the kick.

&&&

  
_He presses her against the wall, keys falling from limp fingers. His hands ache to reach under her shirt, to see every inch of her ivory skin, to run his hands over every cell, to bruise and mark it as his own._

He kisses her neck and wonders what **he** would think if she came in with love bites on her neck, with the glow of someone post-coital, with the knowledge that she has moved that far away from him.

She bites his shoulder when he kisses the inside of her elbow, and he realizes he doesn't care anymore.

Somewhere around the same time, she realizes the same thing.

&&&

  
His eyes are intense, too, she notes once, over lunch.

They don't have the same, shocking intensity that House's do, nor do they have the off-putting quality that hers do sometimes.

He reminds her of Chase, marzipan exterior gleaming under the lights, but ultimately confectionary and a bitter aftertaste. She ponders - maybe he has some dark secret, some family trauma, some shady past.

But he is Wilson, after all. Cameron knows nothing else if she does not know Wilson.

A part of her questions in whispers if she knows James any better.

&&&

  
She plays "I Never" with the other fellows.

"I've never...been married."

She glares at Foreman and tosses back a shot.

"I've never jacked a car." It's Eric's turn to glare at her before taking his shot, too.

Chase thinks for a moment. "I've never taken drugs."

Allison sighs and takes another shot, and Foreman reluctantly reaches for one as well.

He sighs heavily and stares into the bright light above the bar. "I've never slept with a co-worker."

She and Chase carefully don't look at each other as they toss back more alcohol. Vaguely she notes that she has had more than the others so far and wonders if that isn't deliberate.

If you can't beat 'em. "I've never dug up a cat." Dutifully, Foreman and Chase drink, clinking glasses before tilting their heads back.

It's Chase's turn again. His eyes are glassy and a little out of focus. It takes him a long moment to come up with a "never". "I've never...been torn between two people."

"Wait, what?" Foreman leans forward, chair scraping against the floor.

"Like for us, two girls. I've never had to choose between two of them." He looks at Allison and smirks a little. "Or two men, for that matter."

"Man, you seriously suck at this game." He and Chase bicker quietly, and it fades into the background of her mind.

She runs a finger along the rim of the shot glass, listening to the glass squeal.

When she's sure they're not looking, she takes a sip of the whiskey.

&&&

  
_He awakes in the sunlight and finds her gone. The sheets are still a little warm, but the pillow is long cool. Feeling detached from himself, he notes that her scent pervades the sheets, a faint whiff of jasmine clinging to the linens of his bed._

He sits up, unsure for the first time in a long time. He can see the fogged mirror in the bathroom from his position. He toys with his hair, smoothing it down into something resembling controlled chaos, and steps out of bed. A pair of boxers lies on the floor, cast aside in the dark. He steps into them, yawns, and heads into the bathroom, willing himself to simply not think about what has happened. Idly, he rubs the third finger of his left hand and is still startled to feel the ring missing.

On the mirror, in soap, are the words, "Sorry, House called." Underneath are a line and a letter A. He stares at the message for a long moment, unsure of what he is feeling. A chill runs down his spine, and his skin erupts in goose bumps.

Then, he grabs a towel and wipes the words away.

* * *

AN: The summary-quote is Walt Whitman, whose poetry formed a big part of _Dead Poets Society_, which starred Robert Sean Leonard who plays Wilson. (It's like Six Degrees of Separation, I swear.) I chose it because, well, it fit. And I wanted something tied to DPS. An oxymoron is a contradiction in terms. Both refer to Wilson.  



End file.
